Old Man and the Seel

Pokémon desired - Swinub

Note: The formatting turned out a little weird since I wrote it on the side, but the paragraphing should be alright for the most part.





It was early morning. The sun was barely visible over the horizon, casting a most beautiful light through the clouds.
The squawking of Wingull could be heard in the distance, as well as the occasional flutter of wings somewhere nearby out of sight.
He hadn't much wanted an assistant, but business had been poor lately. Fishing ships from Slateport had been through his waters
lately, and it was scarce to find more then but a few Magikarp. Not wanting to sell his ship and retire, he decided a clever way
to make money would be to take on an assistant, someone with rich parents that would be stupid enough to pay him to work on
his boat. The idea had come to him when he had spotted an advertisement on television (in a store during a trip to Rustboro, he
didn't care much for television himself), about a summer camp for young boys. It boasted to have all sorts of outdoor activities;
from swimming to hunting, to fishing and camping. If parents would be dense enough to pay to send their kids to this, he thought,
surely they would pay to put their kid on a fishing boat to get experience in a real trade. He posted a flier in town, and sure
enough, there was a response. The parents had to check it out first of course, they wouldn't put their only son aboard
the ship of some crazy old man. But Briney was well respected around Rustboro and the surrounding areas; he had been the
primary supplier of the towns seafood, and had even expanded to shipping to other places as well. There were even stories told
about his exploits with his trusted Wingull, Peeko. These were all largely glorified, of course, and many of them outright untrue.
Nonetheless, nearly every child of Rustboro had heard the story of the great Briney versus the Shoal Cave Pirates. He was old
now however, and most of the fight was now gone from his tired body.

He was easily pushing seventy, his hair and beard white as a Silcoon. His clothes were that of a typical sailor, well worn from
the many years at sea they had surely seen. He wore ragged boots, that looked as though they should have fallen apart completely
a long time ago. He was a patient man. After all, fishing took patience of the highest sort. Though age had clearly taken it's toll,
he was still very fit. A man half his age would do well to be in the same shape. Numerous scars littered his body, each with their
own story. The boy was young; too young to be of much help. He hadn't taken him on for his assistance though, and he still had his
use from time to time. In fact he had only turned ten two months prior to joining Briney's ship, and the two weeks he had served so far
felt like ages. He wasn't made for getting up this early! The bags over his eyes were evident of this, he didn't even have to get
up this early for school. On the bright side, it meant he had to spend less time in the sweltering summer sun.

This was how he was spending his summer! All of his friends were off vacationing, and training their Pokémon, and sleeping
in 'till noon. His parents hadn't even let him have Pokémon of his own yet. Imagine that! Putting their ten year old son on a
boat with an old man, but not trusting him enough to let him have his own Pokémon. Never mind that the old man was the
famed Briney, it just wasn't fair!

The air was cool on this morning, particularly so for this time of the year. It was a refreshing change, for even in the
early waking hours it had been uncomfortably warm. A gentle wind blew in from the sea, sending a chill down the young boys spine.

"It is unusually cool this morning,"

Briney said, with a voice almost like the waves of the ocean themselves. His voice was calm and almost soothing, but when angry
it could carry the fury of a crashing tsunami.

"Do you know what that means?"

The boy shook his head, of course he couldn't know. In the two weeks he'd worked aboard the old mans boat, Briney had neglected
to mention anything about the effects of cooler temperatures, quite simply because it hadn't come up until now.

"It can mean a number of things, but in this particular case I believe it means there will be a storm."

He paused for a breath.

"Yes, I think it will storm today."

The boy looked almost a little nervous, he remembered many a tale of Briney's battles against raging storms, and he didn't particularly
want to be caught up in one.

"Does that mean we won't go out today, sir?"

"No!"

The old man did not quite yell, and he didn't seem at all angered at this statement, but rather more surprised and puzzled.

"Storms can do many wonderful things for fishing. They stir the waters, and cause all sorts of disruptions."

He looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Yes, if we're lucky we may find many fish today."

They left the shoreline, and made their way across the dock and onto the boat. Like nearly everything else the old man owned,
the boat was subject to decay brought on by many years on the ocean. On his first day there, the young boys parents had had
much difficulty convincing him to even board the ancient vessel.

"Did you happen to happen to catch Contest News last night?"

The old man said, as he prepared to boat for sailing. The young boy shook his head. He had been too tired to stay up for the show,
and wasn't particularly fond of Pokémon contests regardless.

"I heard on the radio, Jasmine is going for her eleventh consecutive win."

The boy wasn't interested, but he didn't want to sound rude. "That's pretty good, isn't it?"

The old man nodded. "No one has won that many contests in a row in years." He sighed.

"Some day I'd like to see Jasmine compete... maybe my beloved Peeko can compete against her! Wouldn't that be a sight!"

"Yes it would, sir."

The old man laughed, finishing up the arrangements.

"Of course I'd never find the time to make it all the way to Verdanturf."

"Verdanturf?" The boy asked. "I thought the contests took place in Lilycove city."

"Well, the Master Rank ones do... but everyone has to start out in Verdanturf, where they hold the Normal Rank contests."
The old man replied, as he finished preparing the boat.


.....


The morning was moderately uneventful like usual, Pokémon were scarce. Retrieving their nets they found only a pair of Magikarp,
and a very confused Krabby. Overfishing had taken it's toll, and today was clearly no different.

"Never mind, boy.. once the storm hits we'll have fish aplenty!"

The boy did not look comforted by this; still nervous at the prospect of a storm, no matter what the old man said to reassure him.

"I've been in dozens of storms, this boat can take it."

The rest of the morning went no better, and the sun had yet to show it's face. There would no doubt be a storm that day.

It did indeed begin to rain, and it was a fierce and mighty storm. Lightning crashed in the distance, and water poured down
and crashed into the boat like the fury of Poseidon. The boy had seen his share of storms. Rustboro didn't get much
rainfall, but he had relatives that lived in Lilycove, and he had visited them a lot. He remembered getting woken in the middle
of the night to the roar of thunder, and running to his grandmothers room for safety. However, he had never seen something
quite like this. A storm is a different thing entirely when you're already completely surrounded by water. The young boy was
terrified, and rightfully so. The old oan Briney however, looked invigorated by it all.

"See this, boy?? This is what we fishers live for! This is true excitement!"

There was a life to the old man that had not been seen for ages, and he almost looked to be thirty years younger at that moment.
The boy was reminded of all the stories he had heard of the courageous Briney, and he realized he was fishing with a legend.
Suddenly all his fear was gone, and he wanted nothing more but to face up against a band of pirates, battle against a mighty
Sharpedo, and have his own tales be told over a warm fireplace. And it was at that moment, that the ship got tossed aside.
A mighty wave crashed into the side of it, knocking the boy down to the floor.


.....


He awoke on the boat, which no longer seemed to be in water. Getting up slowly, he looked around. His head hurt, and he had
obviously hit it in the fall. The boat was in some sort of cavern, likely a grotto. To one side of the cavern was land, which had
a tunnel that appeared to head further underground. The boat was halfway on land, halfway in shallow water. The water opened
up to a wide tunnel which headed out to the other side of the cavern widening out further, likely leading outside to sea.
It was hard to see, but light streamed in through the tunnel that must lead to the ocean. The boat appeared to be
badly damaged, and didn't look like it would sail without significant repair. The old man was not in sight, and the boy was scared.
Rushing to search the boat, he managed to spot the old man. He too had been knocked unconscious, perhaps he would have been
able to steer the boat had he been awake. Briney was near the helm of the ship, he clearly had been trying to steer it when he
got knocked out. The boy shook him in attempt to stir the old man, but he was very much unconscious, or worse.

"No, wake up Sir! You must wake up!"

The boy didn't know what to do, but he certainly didn't feel like waiting around for the old man to come to. He could be dead, for
all he knew! He didn't want to wait around for hunger to eventually take him too. In fact he was beginning to get hungry already,
having hardly eaten a thing for breakfast. He had been unconscious for who knows how long, as well.

The ground wasn't too far below the boat, being largely submerged in the shallow water. He was able to jump down, stumbling
as he landed and falling on his hands. He yelped in pain, and the sound echoed across the cavern. He regained his footing, and
started to head into the tunnel ahead. No sooner had he entered the tunnel was it nearly pitch black. Walking further it was
simply impossible to see, and he was forced to feel along the walls with his hands. He had heard stories of spelunkers stumbling
upon ravenous Ursaring and being devoured, but he pushed these thoughts to the back of his head and pressed on. Ages seemed
to go by, and his stomach rumbled furiously. He was starting to shiver. The tunnel seemed to have no end. In fact, for all he knew,
he had been going in circles. He doubted this though, as it appeared to be getting colder. Walking further, he felt almost close to
passing out.

Could this be it for him? Would he slip into unconsciousness and freeze to death in this dark cavern? He pushed on as much as he
could, keeping the thought of his body encased in ice close to mind to motivate him to keep going. He'd once read a story about
a man lost in the woods freezing to death, and he admitted it didn't sound like the worst way to go. He didn't want to go though,
not for a long time. He was still young! He shouldn't have even been out here, on this boat. Sure, ages ago it wasn't unusual
for young men to sail on fishing ships, but this was modern times! Fishing ships were scarce enough. Dying alone in the bottom
of a freezing cave just wasn't a legitimate risk anymore. But it was, for him. He could die alone and cold here. So he had to
keep going!

It seemed unusually cold the further he went, even for a cave. He'd never gone caving before, but it at least felt colder then
he would have guessed a cave would be. He had lost all feeling in his appendages, and that almost made it easier to keep
going. He imagined his feet must be in immense pain by now, and he was almost thankful not to be able to feel them.
Just as he was about to lose hope and succumb to exhaustion, he saw a light off in the distance. Suddenly he felt a sudden
burst of vigor, and managed to force himself to keep going towards the light! It got brighter the closer he got, and almost to
it he saw the tunnel open into a wide cavern. He could see clearly inside, the source of light was evidently quite bright.

It was a large cavern, likely forty feet around. It was reasonably clear of obstructions, the only significant trait of the room
being a rocky platform in the center. It was almost like a pedestal, reaching up six feet in the air like a plateau in an island
of rock. It was like a wide stalagmite with the top chopped off to be a flat platform, about three feet around.
More interesting then the stone platform though, was the Seels. Surrounding the platform sporadically were fifteen, maybe
twenty Seel. They all seemed to be drawn to the light in the center of the room, which appeared to be emanating from
the most interesting thing in the room, which was a Solrock.
Suspended several feet above the platform was a large creature. The boy had heard of them before, but had yet to see
one himself. An orange sphere with eight rock spikes protruding from the side of the creature, it had strange egg-shaped
eyes. The bright light was clearly emanating from the creature, though oddly it was not blindingly bright at the source.
Somehow it managed to keep the entire room illuminated without being significantly brighter at any given point.

Shaking from both fear and the cold, the boy entered the room cautiously. The Seel did not attack, or even seem to give
him much notice. He knew close to nothing about the icy mammals, but as far as he knew they were docile. He hoped this
was true, and so far it was proving to be so. Seel were white as cotton, with a long tail resembling a splash of water.
They had fat adorable expressions on their face, with a large tongue constantly exposed. Their round bald heads had a
horn that they would use for breaking ice, and they had large teeth exposed similar to those of a Walrein. They had
fin-like arms at either side of their body, and they used these to push themselves along the ground.

The Solrock simply levitated there, slowly hovering up and down ever so slightly. It too disregarded the boys presence.
This room appeared to be the source of the cold, though whether it was from the Seel or emanating from elsewhere in the
room was unclear. Despite this, a small amount of heat emanated from the Solrock.
He hadn't noticed it before, but there was also a little Swinub as well, concealed among the Seel. It was a wonder that
he had not noticed it sooner, as it's brown fur stood out greatly against the white body of the Seel.

Spotting another tunnel leading out of the cavern, the boy began to walk towards it. At that moment, something started
to happen. The Solrock began to rotate in midair, in a clockwise fashion. As it did this, the light in the cavern grew brighter.
The boy stopped and watched, shaking from fear from lack of understanding of what was happening. The light continued to
grow in brightness, but somehow it didn't hurt his vision. Rather, it simply illuminated the room further and growing brighter
began to obscure his vision. Yet, even when it nearly blinded him completely, his eyes still did not hurt from the light.
A few moments went by, and the boys vision was completely gone from the intensity of the light. But all of a sudden, it was
dim again. He could see, and the Solrock had stopped spinning. All around him though, things had changed. The Seel were
all gone, and in their place now stood Dewgong.

The beautiful creatures in most ways resembled Seel, but they were much larger and more graceful. Their tongue was no longer
exposed and their fins and tail were now closer to that of a fish, less rounded but yet more beautiful. The Dewgong lowered their
heads, and began to sway from side to side, emitting a soft and low tone from their mouths in unison with each other.
This dance of sorts went on for a while, and the boy noticed something. The little Swinub he had spotted was still there, and it
looked sad and disappointed. It's head was low, and he could almost make out tears from its little closed eyes. It slowly backed
away from the group of Dewgong, and scuttled into a corner and sat there, nearly motionless.

Not wanting to disturb the Dewgong though they had left him alone so far, the boy decided to make for the tunnel on the far side
of the cavern. Perhaps it would lead to the outside! He slowly made his way over there, keeping as much of a distance from the
Dewgong as possible. The Swinub appeared to notice him however, and as soon as he passed it the little creature started to
follow him. As not to disturb the Dewgong, the boy made no attempts to stop the little pig or interact with it in any way whatsoever,
and simply continued to head for the tunnel.

This tunnel was much like the previous one he had been through, but rather then get colder the further he went it actually got warmer.
It steadily headed upwards, and was even steep in some places. It was dark and impossible to see and tell, but it seemed as though
the little pig was following him. This he knew from the occasionally squeal he would hear when traversing particularly tricky sections
of the tunnel. Why the diminutive swine was following him, he didn't know. This tunnel wasn't nearly as long as the other, but it was
significantly more difficult to traverse. He used all of his remaining energy, and finally there was again light in sight.
If it was another light like the one in the cavern, there would be no way he could survive to see the surface.
But it wasn't, and with the last of his remaining strength he emerged from the tunnel into the light of day.
He wondered what day it was, and how long he had spent below ground. And those were his last thoughts before collapsing,
the Swinub snuggled up against him trying to keep him warm despite being a cold creature itself.


.....

 

Introduction, Characters, Backstory: You started the story from the perspective of a different character, which in this case was a nice touch. It's interesting because you get to describe your 'main character' from two different perspectives-- Briney's and his own.

This also allows you to inspect both characters' different opinions and viewpoints on the trip they're taking, and contrast them to give a better idea of what both of them are like.


Plot Content, Plot Flow: Not your average, "Kid setting out on his Pokémon journey." The use of Briney and his ship as a plot device is a nice touch. As for the flow of the plot itself, it was quite smooth: I didn't lose track of what was going on, since the only non-sequential segue was from the storm to the shipwreck, during which time both characters are unconscious.

This may have been intentional, but I thought the boy's decision to leave Briney to his fate was a bit abrupt. Every man... or boy... for himself, I guess. ^_^;


Grammar, Sentence Flow: All in all, good. A few mistakes, but there are always a few mistakes, so no big deal. It was both legible and easy to read the entire way through. Nonetheless, I will, as usual, list a few grammatical quibbles just for future reference.

Grammatical Quibbles: These are minor things that didn't impact how readable your story was. They're just here as a reminder to try and avoid such things in future. ^_^

First of all, somewhat noticeable were a few mix-ups between 'than' and 'then.'

Also, 'was' here should be 'were,' since the sentence could be alternatively structured as, "The Seels were more interesting than the stone platform, though."

Also, 'getting colder' would be more correct than 'get colder' ('got warmer' is right, though.)

Also, you used the word it's several times in this story; every one of them was wrong, they should all have been its.

This sentence had one example of the above error, but in the same phrase you used the word correctly. So yeah. Just change every instance of it's in your story to its and you'll be fine. xD


Detail, Description: This was good. A few parts caught my eye especially, like describing Briney's hair and beard as 'white as a Silcoon.' Using metaphors from the Pokémon world itself is a nice touch. Though you do reference 'the fury of Poseidon...' I guess Greek mythology exists even in the Pokémon world, even if Greece doesn't. xD

It's good that you described the Seel and Dewgongs, along with the Solrock-- we all know what they look like, but it's nice to see that you didn't just put, "There was a Solrock surrounded by a large group of Seel."

To be honest, I don't have anything specific to criticize about the detail of your descriptions in this story. If you were going for a Complex or Demanding Pokémon, this might verge on inadequate, but the imagery in your writing is strong enough that I have no trouble seeing the scenes in my mind's eye. It helps that they're largely dark/dim, though. =P


Battles: There wasn't really a battle, but that's permissible when your story has an evident 'action sequence' or climax. The storm might have qualified, but it was far too early in your story to be considered anything more than the end of the 'intro.' Then there was the scene with the Seel evolving into Dewgongs. However, I felt that the evolution scene, while well-described, was underplayed somehow. It may have been interesting to read, but I didn't find it particularly exciting.

Your character's increasing desperation throughout the time leading up to that scene is sufficient to build tension, but there wasn't really a release of that tension in the form of an exciting 'high point' of the story.

Because I don't actually know what I'd change about the story to make it more climactic, you won't be penalized for this-- evidently, the narrative style is simply meant to be more tense and less action-based.


Overall: This is a universally strong story, I think. No aspect of it is weak enough to result in a failing Grade, especially given that you set a modest (Medium-difficulty) goal for yourself.
This story would likely have still merited a success if it were for a Hard-rated Pokémon. Good job.


Result:
Swinub: Caught.